


exhalations

by vapiddreamscape



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: And I'm Okay With That - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Siblings, literally every fic i write is just me giving my favorite characters time to heal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vapiddreamscape/pseuds/vapiddreamscape
Summary: Time is standing stillstanding stillstanding still.The Prophecy of TimeThere was a war; of course none of them escaped unscathed. But if you want a wound to close, you must first expose it to oxygen. Only then can healing begin.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. vikus

**Author's Note:**

> let them heal please im begging you

If there was one thing Vikus always prided himself on, it was his voice. In his prime, the damned thing had averted wars, for all the good it did them in the end. Still, one can never say no to a little extra time before the violence breaks.

He supposes it doesn’t matter now. No matter what he wants to say, his voice has turned traitor, one of a number of things he thought would never betray him.

It’s still there but the words stick in his throat, stopping and starting as he tries to make himself heard. After a while, he just stops trying. He’s taught Luxa well enough and after her little display with Ripred, he knows she can handle herself.

He wanders around Regalia, a ghost in every way but flesh, barely noticed by people who once revered him. A few will stop and try to speak with him, the ones who know he is a different person than his wife, but after they realize he has lost his best attribute, they too fall away, leaving just him and his thoughts.

There’s a lot of them and they don’t always make sense. The day Judith and Hamnet were born, juxtaposed with the day he finds out he was to raise his granddaughter. The day he realized Hamnet had left. The day Gregor told him he would never see him again. Telling Susannah she was an only child now. The moment he looked in the Warrior’s eyes and realized he was sentencing a child to death. He decidedly does not think about his wife; he’s not quite ready for that. 

He still does not speak.

He doesn’t know what to do with it all, and somewhere in that confusion, he begins writing. The fragments of his memory are strong where it matters, the superfluous having faded when his brain did the same. In a way, it makes sense. Once upon a time, he had been the bearer of the future, spending his nights memorizing Sandwich’s prophecies, interpreting them, and guiding the chosen to the prophecies they were meant to complete.

Now, he is a purveyor of the past, taking reams of paper from the museum and making sure no one forgets. (Sometimes, it seems like a waste, but he has seen too many horrors to carve into stone. Even then, his hands shake so much, he knows he will never be able to do as Sandwich did.) He still doesn’t write about his wife and he’s not sure why. Everything else is there: the plague, the wars (almost too many to count by now), his children and grandchild, the countless reasons why humans are called “killers” to this day, the fragile peace they have formed despite it all.

He isn’t finished and he’s fairly certain he never will be. But there comes a point where it all feels...better, like an exhale after holding your breath for almost too long. Still, there is something he must do.

That night, Vikus takes a soft piece of charcoal and goes down to the prophecy room for the first time in nearly a decade.

She doesn’t have a grave, her body never found (probably for the best). So he scrawls her name over the Prophecy of the Blood and stares at it for a few moments.

“Solovet,” he chokes out, tripping over syllables that grow stronger and stronger the longer he speaks, though his voice is still rusty. “I love you. But also, I hate you. I am no longer sure which one is more important to me and for that alone, I apologize. You always hated a man who couldn't make up his mind.”

He sighs, rubs out her name, and stands.

The next day, he begins writing about the day they met. And it hurts (that much is certain) but Vikus knows he can’t keep it inside anymore. Maybe once he writes it all down, he’ll be able to figure exactly how he feels about the woman he once proudly claimed as his wife. Maybe he won’t. He won’t know until he tries.

Until then, he exhales slowly and keeps writing.


	2. ripred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ripred was born angry, and he'll die angry. But maybe, he doesn't have to drag the rest of the world down with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ripred gets a drabble because he's already got such a good character arc and I'm not gonna mess with that.

He’s still angry, but since when is that new? He’s pretty sure he came out of his mother’s womb this way, spitting fire and blood. (They call him a Rager for a reason after all.) But there’s something else there now, teasing at the corner of his heart and annoying the hell out of him. It’s this: children do not belong on the battlefield. But fuck, it’s necessary. This world is the one they will inherit and if they don’t fight for it, they will die alongside it. He’s seen it before; he will see it again. Such is life in the Underland.

But then he meets that Overland girl. (If he doesn’t call her Lizzie, maybe he can pretend he doesn’t care as much as he does.) She’s so much like Silksharp that he can hear the pup’s voice whenever she opens her mouth. She’s broken, afraid in a way he can never understand. But this he does understand: if Silksharp were still alive, she would feel the same.

When he grabs Luxa’s hand and begins speaking the bonding ceremony, it’s their voices he hears echoing the words back to him.

Ripred’s pretty sure it’s not true but maybe, just maybe, no more children will have to fight. Not if he has anything to say about it.


	3. aurora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's been years since aurora felt needed.

Luxa doesn’t need her as much anymore and Aurora tries not to let that hurt. After all, her bond is queen now and her people never stop calling. Aurora helps where she can, but her flight is hindered as age aggravates old injuries. Some adventures are not meant for old bats with broken wings.

Outside those rare moments together, she keeps to herself mostly, training and thinking and remembering. She doesn’t leave Regalia unless Luxa has need of her, memories of crashing in a far-off jungle somehow still fresh. Sometimes, the young ones ask her to tell them stories, but the words catch in her throat and she ushers them over to the blusterers, the Howards of the world who love nothing more than imparting their history upon those fortunate enough not to live it. But today, there is one who will not listen to her, a small girl who reminds her of Luxa when her bond was small, all big eyes and an expression far too serious for her years.

“Go with the other children. I am sure Howard will tell you a wonderful story.”

She shakes her head. “He always tells the same stories. And they’re boring.”

Aurora can’t disagree with her, at least about the first part. Howard, dedicated as he is preserving their history for the next generation, refuses to lie, a decision she admires. But the stories he chooses to impart to this youngest generation hew as close to fairy tale as possible, with clean lines between good and bad and no mentions of chemical warfare and genocide. Though he tells them well, there’s only so many that fit the criteria and Aurora herself tires of the Reemergence of Ripred on a weekly basis.

“Then go find your parents.”

The little girl shakes her head. “They’re right over there.” Two women near the hand-to-hand sparring ring notice she’s pointing at them and wave. She returns the gesture before turning back to Aurora. “Now, will you tell me a story?”

“I am sure Howard--”

“No.” She sounds so much like Luxa in that moment, it hurts. “He can’t tell me about the black bat.”

“Black bat?”

She nods, holding out her arms like they’re wings. “The big black bat. The one who died. My mommy told me you were friends with him.”

Aurora looks back at the two women, no longer paying attention to their conversation. She doesn’t exactly want to kill the woman, never mind she’s not sure which one it is. But many people have tried to talk to her about Ares over the years and the conversations always go the same way. Most of them try to get her to admit to his nefarious deeds, despite the fact he proved himself to be the hero time and time again, up to and including the moment he died. Usually, she leaves those conversations with a sour taste in her mouth, occasionally with a taste for blood. At this point, it's easier not to speak of him anymore, not even to Luxa; it hurts too much.

The little girl pushes on, apparently not noticing her silence. Or not caring. “I want to be him when I grow up!”

“You are a human. Not a bat.”

“Don’t be silly. My mommy told me that he helped the Warrior all the time and saved the world and flew everywhere in the Underland and was really, really, really cool!”

Her heart skips as the little girl keeps talking about all the things Ares did, truth painted in the varnish of a fairy tale, rather than lies dressed up as horror stories. Eventually, she interrupts her. “Would you go get your parents, please? I have a question for them.”

The girl all but drags the two women over there and she finally learns the child's name. Aurea, Aury for short. One of Aury's mothers, whom she now recognizes as one of Perdita's underlings, nods at her in deference when she notices the question on Aurora's face. "You saved my life once, you know, long ago. That's not something you forget quickly." 

"I apologize to have forgotten myself," Aurora responds, eyes cast toward the ground. The woman merely laughs. "That's a good thing, I would imagine. You've saved so many lives so many times, what's one more in the grand scheme of things." She runs her fingers through her daughter's hair as the little girl holds tight to her leg. "We live in a time of peace, so I felt naming my child in your honor was the closest I could come to repaying that debt."

"There is no need for repayment." She casts her gaze once more to the child, all shining violet eyes and white hair falling in tangles around her face. "I would, however, ask you a favor." A short conversation and a few effusive promises of safety later, Aurora and her young namesake leap into the air above Regalia, ignoring the faint ache in her wing as they make their journey.

Eventually, she finds her way back to his cave, muscles remembering what her mind has long forgotten. Aury leaps off her back as soon as they land, big eyes growing even wider with fascination as she takes in her surroundings. “What is this place?”

"This is where Ares lived, before he died.”

“Why didn’t he live with everyone else? I thought he was a hero.”

Aurora nods. “But not everyone agreed with that.”

“What does that mean? Heroes are heroes. Everyone knows that!”

She gestures to the stone beside her with her aching wing. “Come, child. It’s time for me to tell you a story.” So Aurora does. She speaks for hours, everything she remembers about the bat that had once been a dear friend. Aury listens raptly and though it hurts in more ways than one, it’s nice to feel needed again.


	4. boots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Time for moving on_  
>  moving on  
> moving on.  
> 

When Maggie is fourteen, her theater class plans a trip to New York City. They’ll see a show, visit the Empire State Building, go to the Statue of Liberty. She has the money to pay for it and everything, after years of working at her uncle’s produce stand at the farmers’ market every Sunday. Her classmates can’t stop talking about it and they keep asking her questions about what she remembers from living there. She doesn’t tell them she could only just speak when they left, that she forfeited her memories of swooping skyscrapers in favor of vague ones of darkness and the scuttling of giant cockroach legs.

She thinks about trying to convince her family, but she can already see how her father’s face would blanch, looking as dead as he did when they first brought him home. Her mother’s lips would go thin with fear and anger, though not all directed at her and Lizzie would probably spiral into a panic attack at the very thought of it. Gregor probably wouldn’t answer her call at all.

Thing is, Maggie is also a little afraid. She was young when they went through their ordeal, there’s no question. She isn’t meant to remember--none of them know she does, but it’s there. Fragments of her mother’s screams as they rushed out of their apartment building. The smell of the Waterway and watching a bat being eaten alive above her head. Her brother’s face all the times he thought they were going to die.

In the end, Maggie doesn’t even show the permission slip to her parents. She finds a matchbook in the kitchen drawers and takes it to the backyard. She doesn’t let go until the flame threatens to lick her fingers.

While her classmates go on their big city adventure, she stays home with her parents and sister, playing Scrabble and going to the movie theater an hour away. At night, she tries to remember as much of the Crawlers’ language as she can, but the clicks she learned died long ago. There’s a part of her that’s glad of that.

As she gets into high school, her friends invite her up there time and time again, and every time, she gently refuses. “I’ll go to DC with you if you want. Or Philadelphia. Or Boston. Literally anywhere else.”

“What do you have against New York?”

She just shrugs and leaves them. It’s not like she can explain.

When Maggie is seventeen, she starts looking at colleges. Perhaps a little late, but better late than never, she supposes. She has good enough grades that she could probably follow Gregor to Yale or Lizzie to MIT (what else is there to do in rural Virginia but study). Still, something in her sings that she must make her own path.

She wants to leave Virginia; that much is certain. It’s been a beautiful haven for them after so much hell, but there comes a time where you have to take a little risk. Maggie thinks her parents understand that; it still doesn’t stop her mother from shoving William & Mary pamphlets under her door.

Acting has always been in her blood. She first got up on stage when she was five years old, a dwarf in a knock-off version of Snow White, and she’s never been able to look back. Still, her parents impressed upon her the importance of a college education at a young age and she knows she’ll regret it at least a little bit if she doesn’t have something to fall back on. But still, she needs to be in the thick of it all and that severely limits her options. And California is just so damn far away.

It’s not that she doesn’t hesitate before sending in her NYU application. In fact, Maggie submits it exactly six minutes before the deadline, 11:53 pm on January 1. But she does submit it, the only application she actually sends and it’s as close to perfect as she can make it.

Three months later, she receives a large purple envelope in the mail and her mother almost has a heart attack.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispers the morning after Maggie slips it under her door, as her father looks on, silently.

“I know. And you won’t, I promise. It’s just...” she looks down at where the envelope sits on the table. “I’m ready.”

“Do you have to?” Her mother is nearly begging at this point and it almost breaks Maggie.

She opens her mouth, not quite sure how to respond, when her father leans over and puts his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “It’s time, Grace.”

Her mother starts crying and Maggie looks on desperately. Her father shoos her away and she dashes to her room. Quiet whispers float up to her room, unintelligible, as she tries to go to sleep in this creaky farmhouse. A few hours later, her mother knocks on her door and gives it back with a nod, before pulling her into a hug that seems designed to suck her youngest daughter back into her. They don’t talk about it again until Maggie has her last box taped up and ready to 

She goes downstairs, where her parents are tangled together on the couch, watching Wheel of Fortune reruns. “Which one of you is taking me?” she stutters out, really wishing they didn’t have to talk about this, or preferably, this wasn’t a problem they had to think about at all.

Her father shakes his head. “We’ve got it taken care of, sweetie. Just focus on getting yourself ready.”

Three days later, Gregor and Lizzie load up all her stuff into her uncle’s Jeep and start the winding drive up to their hometown. They both have a few weeks before their respective graduate programs start up and, in a way, it feels like something they have to do together.

They sit in silence a long while. Gregor hums softly to the showtunes playlist Maggie made for the trip. Lizzie’s working on something on her tablet, either some kind of secret government code or sudoku. (Maggie can’t quite tell.) And Maggie? Well, she stares out the window, hoping she hasn’t forgotten anything.

They pull into a rest stop just before they hit the bridge that will take them into the city. Lizzie is shaking, but her breathing is steady and the only sign of Gregor’s nerves are the white knuckles standing stark against his medium-brown skin. Maggie stares at the skyline, just minutes away. She remembers this now; not quite everything, but enough that her stomach twists the way it does when she wakes from a nightmare.

“Are you ready?”

None of them are sure who asks and who answers, but it is clear enough. They pull into the city, fear in their flesh and hope in their hearts, ready to make better memories.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm finally posting a series of one-shots I've posted to [my tuc blog](remedyandwrongentwine.tumblr.com) over the past two or three years. i wanted to finish all 10 before i put them up here but i'm not sure if/when that will happen because i'm much less active in the fandom and also, applying to grad school in a few months! so i'm going to post the four one-shots i already have completed (each stands on its own) and if the inspiration strikes to finish the other six then they'll make their way over here as well.
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/vapiddreamscape), [tumblr](https://vapiddreamscape.tumblr.com), or wherever you listen to podcasts.


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